Provenance

• 1885: on 1 July 1885 Henry Studdy Theobald (1847-1934) of 3 Westbourne Square, London, bought 29 framed 'small pictures' that had been exhibited in the previous year, through Messrs Dowdeswell, London dealers, for £200;
• 1893: 17 drawings were sold at auction, Sotheby's, London, 23 January 1893 (lots 113-130), each with the title 'A Sketch', as follows:
• (lots 113, 114, 116, 117, 118, 122, 123 and 129) bought by Robert Dunthorne (1850-1925) , London dealer, for £6.0.0, £2.12.0, £5.10.0, £1.14.0, £5.0.0, £13.0.0, £4.10.0, and £21.0.0 respectively,
• (lots 115, 121) bought by Marcus Bourne Huish (1843-1904) , Fine Art Society, for £3.15.0 and £2.10.0,
• (lots 119, 120) bought by Edmund F. Deprez (1851-1915) , London dealer, for £5.15.0 and £6.0.0,
• (lot 124) bought by Thomas Way (1837-1915) , £1.15.0,
• (lot 125) bought by 'Ryman', £1.7.6,
• (lots 126, 127 and 128) bought by 'Parsons', London dealer, for £3.3.0, £1.2.0 and £1.12.0,
• (lot 130) bought by Jane Noseda (1814-ca 1894) , London dealer, £8.15.0.

According to Theoba1d, quoted by the Pennells,

'somewhere early in the 'eighties ... I became the fortunate possessor of some thirty or forty drawings or pastels through the Dowdeswells ... they some times brought [Whistler] to my house ...[in] Westbourne Square. The pictures, owing to stress of space, hung mostly on the stair case, and Whistler would stand in rapt admiration before them ... when he wanted to borrow the pictures … it was a labour of Hercules to retrieve them.' 1

The drawings sold by Theobald in 1893 were described by Way as 'mostly slight and struck me as being "early studies" (such as the Mummy Cloth & Notes for Dress) "unfinished sketches" or "schemes" for more complete works' and they were 'mostly bought by the Trade.' 2 Theobald retained possession of a group of 16 watercolours and 3 pastels, which he sold to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919) on 20 June 1902 (Voucher, Freer Gallery Archives).

Exhibitions

Whistler borrowed 15 of Theobald's pictures for an exhibition at Petit's gallery in Paris in 1887, and in 1888 he wrote again, asking Theobald to lend more for exhibition in Munich, 'After all you have these beautiful things always with you - like the poor! - and seldom indeed shall I trouble you for their loan!' 3